Albion W. Tourgée, author of "A Fool's Errand" and other books that have had a phenomenal sale, will contribute to Lippincott's Magazine a series of stories under the general title of "With Gauge & Swallow," illustrating the interesting, curious, and exciting phases of the law. The stories will all be complete in themselves, but will revolve around a common centre of interest. The initial story will be published in the December number. It is entitled "Professor Cadmus's Great Case," and turns on the question of expert testimony in handwriting, the tangled web of a supposed forgery being unravelled with rare ingenuity.
The handsomest book of the year is undoubtedly Will H. Low's illustrated edition of Keats's "Sonnets and Lyrics," which forms a worthy companion to the same artist's "Lamia," issued in 1885.
The next number of Lippincott's Magazine will contain a new novel by Captain Charles King, entitled "From the Ranks." Captain King's stories of military life have achieved the widest success with both military and non-military readers, and his novel of "The Deserter," published in the May number of the magazine, was immediately successful on its first issue and is still in constant and steady demand. No American author has ever succeeded in painting so accurately and so cleverly the human heart that beats beneath the gilt buttons and shoulder-straps, nor, indeed, the human heart that beats in the breast of the wives, daughters, and sweethearts of the graduates of West Point.
Walt Whitman, it was recently announced, was to umpire a base-ball game in Camden, New Jersey. The announcement was even printed upon the tickets of admission to the game, and it drew to the grounds a number of Whitman's admirers from Philadelphia, eager to see the poet and sage in a new and difficult role. But no Walt appeared upon the scene, and it was learned afterwards that the announcement had been made without his authority and even without his knowledge.
With the November (1886) number of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine the publishers introduced a new idea, an original feature, into periodical literature. The serial story, it appeared to them, had had its day. Readers were beginning to weary of having their fiction doled out to them in monthly instalments. They wanted the option of doing their reading in one sitting.
The publishers, therefore, abandoned the serial feature, and commenced the publication of a complete novel with every issue. Fortune favored them. Their first novel was "Brueton's Bayou," by John Habberton, a little masterpiece, in which that popular novelist outdid all his former work.
This was followed by novels from such authors as Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, Julian Hawthorne, M. G. McClelland, Lucy C. Lillie, Edgar Fawcett, Captain Charles King, etc. The public became interested; the circulation of the magazine doubled and redoubled many times over; the new feature was a success.
Encouraged by this success, the publishers have made arrangements for the coming year with some of the best and most popular American authors. Complete novels will be furnished by William H. Bishop, Captain Charles King, Mrs. A. L. Wister, Miss Julia Magruder, Miss Amélie Rives, Henry Hayes (author of "Sons and Daughters"), etc.
